


On Standby

by corvidity



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Katsura, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Courtesan of a Nation, Read with a Shalt Shaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-24 09:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidity/pseuds/corvidity
Summary: Zura finally cracks after being placed on standby one too many times.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born from Liatheus’ saltiness over Zura constantly being sidelined, and how unlike Gin and Sugi, he never had a chance to fight a Tendoshu puppet one-on-one to avenge Shouyou. 
> 
> This also counts as my last fill of the Gintama Fanfic Season Festival, for the “Alternate Universe” theme prompt and “Good-Evil/Hero-Villain Inversion” character prompt.

Can nothing in Edo stay upright for a day? Hijikata depresses the accelerator just a little harder, the red needle on the speedometer shooting well past the speed limit. It’s not as if any of his men would dare arrest him. The scaffolding over the damaged buildings in the royal palace are barely a month old and Amanto embassies are going up in smoke; Hijikata is entitled to _some_ venting.

He pulls the car to a screeching halt in front of what remains of the Letferian embassy, and absently pats his breast pocket. He’s down to two cigarettes and scraping the bottom of his mayonnaise bottle; his patience, temper and mood have plummeted over the last two weeks as almost daily bombings rocked the capital. Forces stretched thin by the recent ruckus at the palace, Edo’s police are struggling to turn the tide against the bomber.

Hijikata swings out of the car, slamming the door on the way. Broken glass and charred debris crunch underfoot as he makes his way to the police tape cordoning off the remains of the embassy. With Kondou overseeing the Shogun’s safety on Matsudaira’s orders, most of the groundwork has fallen to Hijikata.  

“He’s still on scene, isn’t he?”

One of the on-duty officers snaps him a salute. “Yessir!”

“At ease,” Hijikata growls, sliding his second-last cigarette from its box and chomping on one end so furiously the bitter taste of nicotine explodes on his tongue. __Urgh.__

His men look even tenser than before he gave the command, but it isn’t hard to understand why. This is the first time they’ve arrived quickly enough to prevent their target from fleeing the crime scene, and to let this chance slip would be (in a manner of speaking) criminal.  

The embassy before them is gutted, barely a shell. The bodies (if anything remains of them) are a matter for the coroner now, and there’s nothing Hijikata can do for their souls. While never fond of the Amanto exactly, he wouldn’t have wished this fate upon them, burning to less than ash.  

A megaphone is placed in Hijikata’s open hand. He directs it at the smoking ruin and thumbs it on. “This is the Shinsengumi,” he yells, forgetting the need to only speak normally. The static feedback whines and screeches and several men clap their hands over their ears.

Allowing himself a brief grimace, Hijikata clears his throat and tries again. “Surrender peacefully or we’ll take you in by force. This place is surrounded.”

Their suspect rivals Katsura in how quickly he flees, but they aren’t letting him get away today. There’s no response. Hijikata takes a deep breath, and stops. Someone -- something? -- is emerging from the burnt-out hollow of the embassy. It walks slowly, purposefully, each step a lazy swagger.

“Hands up.” Hijikata barks. “You are under arrest –”

The figure keeps advancing. Low, mocking laughter. “No Bakufu dog will imprison me.”

Hijikata refuses to take a backward step, defying every one of his instincts telling him to run. The man sounds uncannily like a darker and deadlier version of Katsura Kotarou. If it was possible for a blade to have a voice, this would be it, silver and sharp, carrying easily to them despite the distance.

Amid the death made by his own hands he is almost regal, as if he was born from its ashes and perfectly at home in them. The royal blue cotton of his kimono is stained grey at the sleeves with soot and dark splotches. Hijikata’s eyes drift down to the sword in the other man’s hand, the katana a rusty red, the shadows coiling, dripping off it.

The wrongness that snakes down his spine has him gripping the megaphone handle a little tighter.

“Identify yourself.”

Up until now he has not been able to see the man’s eyes, obscured by his long hair. Unsettled ash tumbles about his feet as the wind rises and swirls around the figure, lifting and twisting his hair like a maned beast. Hijikata cannot feel his hand anymore or hear the murmurs of his men. He is pinned into place by points of demon-like red (he __knows__ these eyes and has seen them before but not like this).   

“I’m wounded you don’t remember me, Hijikata-dono. It’s your old friend, Katsura Kotarou.”    

And he vanishes.

The cigarette slips from Hijikata’s lips, a thin strip of white amongst all the black.   

***

“What am I even here for?”

Former Shiroyasha, now Yorozuya Gin-chan, does an admirable job of defying gravity as he leans back on his chair, bracing himself on the interrogation table with his booted feet.

“Just a few questions,” Hijikata grinds out, wishing desperately for a cigarette. A damn shame he can’t smoke in the interrogation room. “And would you keep your feet off the table?”

“If you wanted me to answer something that simple, you didn’t need to get me in here.” Gintoki waves a hand at the concrete room, bare of anything but a table and three chairs, separated from the outside by a glass window. Wearily, Hijikata trades a glance with Okita.

The situation is bad enough that he’d barely complained when Kondo assigned them to questioning Sakata. It might have had something to do with the weariness their chief wears like a second skin these days. From behind the glass, he gives them a curt nod to begin.

Gintoki’s feet remain planted on the table. Reigning back his temper, Hijikata throws another glance Okita’s way, to which he gets a casual, uncommunicative side-eye. If they’re going to do good cop vs. bad cap, they’ll have to figure out their roles as they go.

“We don’t want to keep you long,” Okita starts. “This one over here would probably kill you for a cigarette right now. It’d be perfectly fair if you killed him in self-defence, I wouldn’t mind the promotion.”

“Oi, I’d mind. Do __you__ want to die, you bastard?”

Too late he realises he walked right into that one. Hijikata slams his palms down onto the table.

“Listen, Shiroyasha,” he growls, “even you must’ve heard about the bombings of Amanto embassies around town. It’s been all over the news these last two weeks. We know __you__ know the guy responsible. A rebel friend of yours.”

“Takasugi isn’t a friend, really –”

“Katsura Kotarou,” Hijikata interrupts, emphasising the __kat.__ He waits for a startling, a widening of the eyes, but to his dissatisfaction, Gintoki merely shrugs.

“Just because I know the guy doesn’t mean I’m responsible for him.”

“Of course not,” Okita interjects in a markedly calmer tone. “He’s a loose cannon.”

“Who’re you calling a loose cannon?” mutters Hijikata.

Okita merrily continues. “We managed to corner Katsura at the scene of his latest handiwork, but he got the better of a certain Shinsengumi vice captain with mayo for brains and got away.”  

Hijikata’s fingers itch for something, preferably Okita’s neck, to squeeze. “Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, we think it’s a highly suspicious and unusual change in his behaviour. Katsura stopped bombing embassies a while back, and there’s no reason why he’d start again.”

“And we need to understand __why__ he’s doing this to anticipate his next move.” Okita peers at Gintoki somewhat imploringly. “Is there anything that might’ve happened to make him so…unhinged?”    

They get another shrug for their troubles. “Zura’s always had his head in the clouds, but he’s not some bloodthirsty, conscience-less beast.”

“He’s certainly acting like one now,” Hijikata says. “I didn’t see an air-headed idiot standing in those ruins. He was virtually unrecognisable. In the old days, he was a right pest, sure, but he wasn’t completely heartless. Now he’s a flat-out plague. We’re likely never going to recover everyone who was in the embassy at the time because they were reduced to ashes! Incinerated!”

Even Okita raises an eyebrow at the venom in Hijikata’s voice. Gintoki looks a little less bored now, perhaps fully grasping the weight of the situation.

“Are you __sure__ it was Zura?”  

“He told me so himself.”

The Yorozuya boss gives them a look suggesting they should eat his boots. For Hijikata, who is used to having his intelligence underestimated by most, it bounces off.

“It could be Zura.” Gintoki manages to make it sound like a grudging confession, crossing and then uncrossing his legs on the table. “Could I get some food in here? I can’t explain anything on an empty stomach.”

“You don’t get --”

“Bring it in,” Okita commands, and on cue, another officer holding a foam box enters the room, accompanied by a deliciously sweet, syrupy smell.

“I’d really like to give these to you, boss. It’s just that I’m feeling a bit peckish now.”   

The officer pops the lid on the box, allowing Okita to take out a stick of fresh dango.     

Hijikata is grudgingly impressed that Okita does the carrot as well as he does the stick. He takes a sideways glance at Gintoki, who looks to be struggling between hunger and keeping up a stoic face. “Come on, Sakata,” he goads. “The sooner you answer our questions, the sooner you leave with that box.”

At that, Gintoki relents, and slouches back into the chair. In a sign of defiance, he leaves one leg on the table.

“Let’s be honest. You guys don’t know a thing about Zura. You’ve fought him, but not with him. Not in a war like the last one. He isn’t violent without a reason. If he’s going all out, as he seems to be here, he must have a damn good cause. Give any samurai someone or something to protect, and they become a demon.”

The glint in his eyes mirrors the one that shot Hijikata through at the ruined embassy, enough to give him pause. Okita looks to have no fear, or if he does, he hides it well. He leans forward, hands clasped before him.

“You think he’s protecting someone?”

“Maybe.”

Zura is rarely so fiercely protective to the point of destruction. Only at the extreme ends of the war had he ever shown a sign of losing control, and war itself was an extreme most people would never experience. Zura’s poise then, while understated, had withstood the worst of the fighting.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Hijikata demands.

A shrug. “Dunno. It’s been…” Gintoki truly hasn’t seen Katsura around in a while, even before this spate of embassy bombings. If in the interim something had happened, something terrible enough to send him off the deep end… Ikumatsu is alive and doing well. If it isn’t her, then what or who is it?

“You need to talk to him,” Hijikata presses.  

“Do I look like his keeper?” Gintoki barks. “Let’s pretend I do find him, and tell him to stop attacking Amanto embassies or whatever else you’ve accused him of. Zura’s been doing his own thing for ages now, what makes you think he’d listen to me?”

“You were comrades, weren’t you? Back then.”

Gintoki eyes Okita doubtfully. “And what does what happened __back then__ have anything to do with the here and now?”

“Don’t give me that,” Hijikata snorts. “You fought together. You probably laid your lives down for one another. You were samurai, as much as you keep reminding us. I don’t buy the line that he’d push you off without at least hearing you out.”

“Have you met Zura?” Gintoki smirks. “He’s a stubborn bastard.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Uh-huh. But I won’t do it.” Angling the chair back, Gintoki swings his other leg onto the table. He doesn’t need to explain himself to the Shinsengumi, and as much as he considers them friends, they’re still the police. Hijikata is right. Gintoki wouldn’t betray his old comrade so easily, even if the fate of the country depended on it. What had the damn country ever done for him anyway, him or Zura?     

The door groans, hinges creaking back. “Sakata-san.”

“K-Kondo!” Hijikata exclaims, leaping to his feet. Their chief has entered the room, face set in stone. He levels a cool gaze with Gintoki. “I understand your loyalty towards that man. I would sooner commit seppuku than sell out my comrades, were it not for a greater good.

“We’re talking about the lives of innocents, caught up in these attacks. They have done nothing to deserve this level of retribution. If we don’t stop him, or at least try to understand why he is doing this, then we have no way of bringing this to a peaceful resolution.”

The room trembles, and it must be the room, Gintoki concludes, because he doesn’t scare so easily. But losing Zura isn’t something he can face head-on and expect to survive unscathed.

“Sakata-san, you’re a samurai, aren’t you?” Kondo’s voice rumbles around him with words that should be a comfort. “You want to protect the people of Kabukicho.”

All he has ever wanted is to be was strong enough to protect everyone he loves. (Why is this, too, so hard?) He already failed Shouyou. He cannot fail Zura. Won’t allow him to sully their teacher’s legacy. 

“Alright,” Gintoki says. “I’ll speak to him, but not for you.”

He takes the box of dango on autopilot as he leaves, but his appetite has fled.

***

He’s not hard to find. Maybe, Gintoki reflects absently, he had made himself easy to find. Zura could have stayed undercover for years if he wanted.

The sparks of the park bonfire are crisp red scraps in the dark, crackling and spitting as the shadow on the other side adds a new bundle of sticks to the brazier. The park’s usual homeless inhabitants are nowhere in sight.

Gintoki swaggers up to the fire, making a show of noticing the other man. “Hey, Zura, fancy meeting you here on this lovely night-time walk!” He rubs his hands together. “It’s cold enough to freeze your ass off out here.” Katsura offers no return greeting, not even his usual protest. Well. If things are this serious, he’d better cut to the chase.

“What are you playing at?”  

The long cloak and hair of the shadow become clearer as it steps closer to the light, resolving itself into Katsura Kotarou. He looks like some phantom from the Joui war, and Gintoki can barely believe this isthe same person he fought alongside. In the flames his eyes are cold, ghostly and flickering. Hijikata may have been telling the truth, after all.

“This is hardly a children’s game. I am simply doing what is correct.” The ghost sounds like Zura, terribly so. “This is samurai country. It doesn’t belong to the Amanto.”

Gintoki narrows his eyes. “Uh-huh. What’s new?”

The flames __whoosh__ in a breath of wind, clawing at the sky. “You’re asking why I’m committing acts more typical of Takasugi, aren’t you?”

Evoking his name is the last thing Gintoki would’ve expected, yet it confirms Zura hasn’t lost his mind by any measure. He knows precisely what he’s doing.

“What happened?”

“I was tired of being left behind,” Zura says, short and simple and catching Gintoki off guard. “You stormed the Shogun’s castle, or have you forgotten already?” A small smile, and his eyes soften. “I always knew you were a rebel at heart, Gintoki, even if you didn’t. Countries fall around you.”

Knowing Zura, it could be a compliment as easily as an insult. He tries to laugh. “You would’ve loved it.”

Zura’s face darkens again. “You went into the jaws of the beast that night, and you never once thought to call me. Going toe to toe with the Tendoshu is no small feat.”

“I had help,” Gintoki protests, knowing it is not an answer. “Things were moving so quickly…”

“I was on standby this entire time.” 

“If we get you off standby, will you stop bombing Amanto embassies? It’s kind of a headache.” And he kind of doesn’t want to see Zura behind bars.

But Zura is shaking his head. “You misunderstand me, Gintoki. It’s not merely a question of country and honour. I’ve made it clear, time and time again, that you needn’t carry this burden yourself. I’ve always been willing to share it with you.”   

“Zura…”

“Gintoki.”  

He feels the air shift, inevitability bearing down.

“You said I could be Zura as long as you were my general.”

The flames’ dance stills, the long tangle of Katsura’s hair frozen mid-movement. Gintoki sees it coming, knows he has no way of stopping it (just like before).

“If you refuse to command me, then you are not my general. One day, I might follow you again. One day, we might come back and fight together. But today, we are nothing more than samurai fighting for different causes. So, for the last time, it’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.”

In the quiet that follows, Gintoki stares at the hands of his former comrade, and stares hard. In the half-dead light of the fire they’re mottled red, dripping, as if melting from the heat. Then he blinks, and they’re clean, just cast in shadow.

“Shou -- He wouldn’t have…” Gintoki swallows, unable to speak the name. “Katsura.” It pains him to add the extra syllable at the beginning, a weight the other shouldn’t have to bear. “Don’t. Don’t be an idiot.”

“I can’t promise you that.” A genuine smile flickers across Katsura’s face.

“Good,” Gintoki says, and closes his eyes. When he opens them, there’s no one there, like he’d been speaking to a ghost all along.   

***

Whatever the ex-Shiroyasha said to Katsura, it seems to have worked. The bombings stop, and the rebuilding of the palace quickens as security is incrementally relaxed. Hijikata has never been more grateful to go back to dealing with the occasional armed robbery.

Well, until the corpses of Amanto emissaries and Bakufu officials start turning up in dumpsters around Edo.

“It’s like Benizakura all over again,” Hijikata groans after fielding the seventh such call from one of his field officers. A zombie-eyed Yamazaki chewing an empty anpan packet shuffles past. “Another one? It’s the middle of the day! Did the guy want a side of murder with his lunch?”  

Kondo, on his lunch break, shoots Hijikata a guilty look. “Toshi, can you handle this? Just the usual will do. Bring the body back to the morgue. You can take the afternoon off later.”

Hijikata is already halfway out the office.

Their killer (and he’s fairly sure it’s a single person -- the fatal wounds in each body are too precise and consistent to be the work of many, or of one man and several copycats) is mocking them, he feels. Striking at the very people the Shinsengumi are meant to protect.

His personal feelings towards said people are irrelevant. Sure, Hijikata wouldn’t take any of them to the izakaya for a pint, and they tend to look down on him like the Mimawarigumi do, and no, he’s not about to pretend they’re all glowing beacons of virtue, but he is Shinsengumi. He is samurai. No serial killer is going to get the best of them, least of all one who has so little honour.

Pulling up at the crime scene, he’s only half surprised to see a silver perm hovering at the cordon. Thankfully, his two charges are nowhere in sight. What they’d be doing in one of the seediest corners of Kabukicho with their deadbeat boss he doesn’t want to know. It’s not where a high-ranking Amanto would or should be found dallying, let alone two teenagers.

A tarp already covers the body, forensics crew swarming around. He crosses gaze with Gintoki and heads over, sliding a new cigarette out of his box.

“Yorozuya,” he greets, voice infused with irritation. “Never up to any good, are you?”

“Officer,” Gintoki whines, feigning offence, “I’m just a law-abiding citizen who dutifully reported this dreadful crime when I stumbled across it.”

Hijikata lights his cigarette and inhales. “And what were you doing here?”

“A job, naturally. We’re investigating a missing person.”

“Was __this,__ ” Hijikata tilts his head towards the tarp, “the missing person?”

He gets a muffled snort for an answer. “No. The day we’re hired by some loaded Amanto to find their stuck-up, bratty little brother is the day I retire.”

“Huh.” Knowing the rag-tag team that is the Odd Jobs, Hijikata figures he’s telling the truth. Since he can’t get any more from the Yorozuya boss, he ducks under the cordon and accosts the nearest unoccupied officer. “What can you tell me?”

“Clean strike through the neck,” the officer replies. “Victim bled out, just like all the others.”

The Shinsengumi officer has bags under his eyes, face hardened into a shell of composure he clearly doesn’t feel. Gintoki, watching him, senses the man’s weariness, the low mingling disgust and tiredness of feeling disgust. He gets it. He and every other soldier felt the same in the thick of the Joui war, too accustomed to the same old violence of singing swords and dying screams.

“It’s our man, all right,” he continues, the __our__ spat out bitterly, a claim to a man not yet under their control. “Thought you might want to see this, though.”

Hijikata eyes the thin, transparent packet held up to him, white crystals inside glinting.

“Looks like someone was a bad boy,” Gintoki snarks from behind the cordon.

“Shut it,” Hijikata warns. “A drug trade gone bad is one thing, but to involve an Amanto of this ranking…”

He eyes the alleyway trying to pick out the thread of events. The signs of a struggle are limited, trash cans upright and lids secure. If the victim had fought back, they would’ve only done so for a few seconds before dying. The blood splatter is minimal, the scene otherwise unremarkable; their killer had moved clinically and precisely, as they’d come to expect of him.

“Yorozuya,” he growls from around the cigarette. “Tell me about this client of yours.”

“Now you’re interested?”

“You wanna do this at the station?”

Gintoki appears to take the hint. “They were just two parents convinced their son was hanging out with the wrong crowd when he went missing. You know how kids are these days. Except he hasn’t been home in a month; left no note, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, just disappeared clean off the map.” 

“They could’ve come to us.” Hijikata frowns.

“They did. Only you lot were too busy with the bomber.”  

Hijikata takes a particularly deep inhale. He’s never getting his afternoon break at this rate. “Okay, and how does that explain you being here? Would ‘the wrong crowd’ happen to be our dead Amanto?”

“Well,” and Hijikata swears the innocent slope to Gintoki’s shoulders, his nonchalant air, are far too casual to be true, “I wouldn’t know.”

“Are you even trying to be subtle,” Hijikata deadpans. “You know, don’t you?”

“Ah, well, I can __guess.__ And that’s not the same as knowing.”

A dead high-ranking Amanto found with drugs; a missing boy; a string of high-profile murders tied together by the victims’ position in the Bakufu. Sakata acting coy. The pause in embassy bombings. The pieces are there for the puzzling, and Hijikata feels so close to figuring it all out.  

“What’s your guess, Yorozuya?”

Gintoki pushes his sleeve up to wonder at a non-existent watch. “Would you look at the time, must be off!”

“It’s Katsura, isn’t it?”

Hijikata deliberately lowers his voice, making sure the forensics crew can continue their work in the background without overhearing. Down comes Gintoki’s sleeve, all coyness gone.

“Zura? That idiot? Come on, Hijikata. I thought you were supposed to be a bit less dense than your boss.”

“Drop the act. You can’t possibly think you can protect him by turning a blind eye to everything he’s done.”

Gintoki laughs cruelly at that. “What, you’re going to go to Kondo and say, ‘the Yorozuya boss was at the scene of the crime and told me straight up it was Katsura’?”

How anyone can put up with Sakata for more than a day is beyond Hijikata. “Don’t you find any of this wrong? He’s murdered dozens of people in the last month; he needs to be brought in for the good of everyone in Edo.”

“And what about when those people are doing everyone in Edo more harm than good?” Gintoki’s eyes are hard. “In a town like this, there’s too much trash to clean up and too few people willing to do it.”           

The cigarette is starting to feel woefully inadequate. Hijikata hates how he finds himself agreeing, how he wants to vehemently deny that he isn’t anything but a good man doing his best. “You know that’s not how it works, Yorozuya. We’re the Shinsengumi. The police force. We don’t leap to conclusions and __murder__ people as punishment.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, suddenly weary of all the intrusive thoughts. “We ain’t about vengeance, alright?”

The red of Gintoki’s eyes darkens, a hint of challenge rising in them. But then he just shakes his head, and somehow that feels worse than an explosion of rage, a punch, even a snarky retort.

“I agreed to find him and talk to him, but I won’t help you hunt him down. I’ve kept my side of the bargain. So don’t expect anything more from me.”

And all Hijikata can do is watch Sakata Gintoki walk away.


	2. Chapter 2

The cold bites, snapping at his fingers as he fumbles with the cigarette lighter. _Curses._ Just as he manages to get a frail lick of flame to pop up, it dies in the salty grip of a sea breeze. Of all the places Katsura wanted to meet, why did it have to be the docks in the dead of night?

Hijikata has never _liked_ Katsura exactly. Then again, it’s not possible to qualify his feelings about a terrorist slash rogue samurai who occasionally shares the Shinsengumi’s aims, but has an entirely different, illegal way of going about achieving them. As much as it pains him to admit it, Katsura isn’t an unfeeling creature. He has, or had, an innate sense of nobility. Reasoning with him isn’t out of the question.

Gintoki won’t do it out of loyalty, and Hijikata can’t fault him that. Not too much, anyway. He’d do the same for Kondou, even Okita under the right circumstances. Very specific circumstances.  

“Ah, Hijikata-dono.”

He very pointedly does _not_ jump. A shadow detaches itself from the closest shipping container, moving towards him like an oil slick. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to determine you did not lie. You were not followed by the Shinsengumi, and neither are you hiding any cameras or microphones.”

“Look.” Hijikata is more than miffed an honest-to-god murderer would think he had the moral high ground. “You’re a terrorist, but I’m a man of my word.”

“Indeed.” Katsura sounds… impressed? Not that his approval means anything, of course. “I admit I was intrigued to receive a request from the Shinsengumi vice captain to meet in private. What could he possibly want with a terrorist, if not to arrest him? Surely not to have a civil conversation?”

The moon breaks out from behind a cloud, casting the thinnest beam onto Katsura’s figure. In the dimness, Hijikata can just make out the other’s thoughtful look. “Did Gintoki send you, by chance?”

This, Hijikata can’t help but laugh at. “He told me to piss off. Apparently, only _he_ gets to track you down. I didn’t think a polite message sent through our underground network would actually convince you to come out of hiding.”

“Yet you did not seek your commander’s approval. You were willing to meet me alone. Is there anything you fear, Hijikata-dono?”

“Now that you ask, yeah. Not being able to smoke here.”

Katsura has the gall to laugh, damn him. “Please, be my guest. I’ve no objections.”  

Hijikata flicks open the lighter again, shielding it from the elements this time, and is puffing away at a new cigarette in less than a minute. The heady ashy scent drowns out the salt spray of the ocean.  

“There’s a rebel in you yet, demon vice chief.”

“I shudder to think.”

“Ah, but you feel it too, don’t you?” Katsura, damn him twice, looks to be enjoying this. Hijikata steadfastly refuses to play along.  

“I’m feeling a lot of things, and I’m near one hundred percent certain none of them are what you’re referring to.”

Katsura quirks him a crooked smile. “The injustice of the Bakufu, of course. How they framed the Yorozuya; how Sadasada turned you over so quickly; how the palace samurai called you country bumpkins who should be grateful to the government for allowing you to keep your swords. As if being a samurai was only about having the approval of authority.”

The waves crash and roar in Hijikata’s ears, ash crumbling off the end of his cigarette. It’s not as if he’s just had his heart laid bare by someone who has no business sharing his heart.

“What do I know, right? Politics ain’t my thing.”

“Being a samurai is, Hijikata-dono.”

He coughs pointedly. “I’m a police officer, too. I operate under the law. That’s how I, we, do things as samurai in the Shinsengumi.”

“And what do you do when the law is not just? When going outside it is the only right thing to do, to preserve your honour as a samurai?”  

“You don’t go around murdering people,” Hijikata replies.

“And neither do you let murderers roam free at the highest levels of government.”

After a long exhale of smoke, Hijikata sighs. “God, Sakata was right about you. This really is your idea of justice, isn’t it? Protecting the little people from our masters in the sky.”

The mention of the Yorozuya boss coaxes a small, genuine smile from Katsura. It softens his entire demeanour, wearing a fondness at odds with the supposedly destructive beast he’s become. “Gintoki is not entirely wrong.”

“Oh?”

“I will let you know this much, in exchange for agreeing to meet me on my terms.” Ah, and here Hijikata had almost forgotten the point of their meeting. Best to salvage what he can.

“This particular quest of mine is a kind of justice, yes. But it is not based on a whim. There’s a particular story behind it, not that I’m about to tell you. And no, Gintoki wouldn’t tell you either. But rest assured, Hijikata-dono, no one innocent will suffer.”

His smile this time is dagger-sharp and tinted by a sliver of moonlight. Hijikata turns away, casting his eyes out over the roiling sea. With those words, he knows there’s no happy ending for everyone. It’ll be the rebels or the law-keepers, and despite knowing his side, Hijikata wishes it didn’t have to end so harshly, stitched in black and white.       

***

Gintoki was often labelled the worst troublemaker out of Shouyou’s disciples, a term he’d never disputed simply because he didn’t care what anyone called him. Besides, he’d take “troublemaker” over “demon” any day. What he did dispute was why nobody ever thought to call Zura a troublemaker. The model student was a pretty mask, and he and Takasugi knew it. Zura kept his fangs hidden, which made them all the sharper when he did strike.

And Gintoki had never failed to suppress just the slightest hint of pride when it happened. Katsura Kotarou in full flight was a masterpiece. Katsura Kotarou in full flight against Oboro of the Naraku was --

“ZURA,” he howls, and comes to in a drenched futon, one hand wrapped around the bokutou he keeps at his bedside. Flashes of the dream accompany him into the waking world, of a long-haired, red-eyed creature driving back the Naraku head, the same figure lying in a pool of blood on a rooftop.

The room is cold, what little light there is is wan and blue. Gintoki shivers.

He’d thought that by refusing to help the Shinsengumi find Zura, he might’ve bought his old comrade a few more months of freedom. Enough time to do whatever he needed and then melt back into obscurity and eccentricity. Hijikata had claimed that apprehending Katsura was for the greater good, but Gintoki is starting to wonder if he shouldn’t have helped him after all, for _Zura’s_ own good.    

In the living room, the TV flickers awake crankily. He cycles through the 24-hour news channels, but there’s nothing to suggest Zura might’ve decided to stage a dead-of-the-night attack. It wouldn’t have surprised him so much as frightened him. Zsura didn’t lay it all on the line till he was cornered.

Soon enough, the late-night cooking shows and episode-length advertisements, the not-quite-muted sounds of scripted chatter and cheeriness, lull him back into a state of half-sleep.

_“We interrupt this program with breaking news. We have reports of an intruder attacking the royal palace and engaging the castle defences.”_

Gintoki stirs, sitting up.

_“The whereabouts and status of the Shogun and his family are at this time unknown, but we understand the Shinsengumi are on scene and working to verify the safety of everyone on premises. We’ll be bringing you further updates once we know more.”_

The video behind the news anchor is of a darkened palace, strobe lights from at least two helicopters illuminating two figures on a rooftop.  

“Zura,” Gintoki hisses, well and truly awake.

The palace grounds are a cacophony of sound and light when he arrives, like an Otsuu concert but without any of the questionable mascots and slapdash lyrics. So nothing like an Otsuu concert at all. Thank god Shinpachi and Kagura are sound asleep. Gintoki wouldn’t have wanted them involved in this.

The Shinsengumi on the ground share their commander’s lack of perceptiveness, or they’re far too busy rounding up palace staff to notice a slip of silver and blue sneaking around. The helicopters might factor in, too. The chopping _thwock-thwock-thwock_ of their rotors and the dust they’re lifting creates enough of a smokescreen for Gintoki to get to the base of the palace unseen.

He cranes his neck up, and Zura’s tiny figure swims into view against the glaringly harsh helicopter lights. His opponent is unmistakably Oboro. Gintoki wouldn’t forget that head of white hair any time soon.

The two take sweeping blows at one another, moving almost blur-like on the steep angle of the roof. Their movements are erratic, strikes and parries skewed by the air the helicopters are displacing. Gintoki’s heart leaps into his mouth as Zura overbalances, just managing to keep on his feet. At this rate, they’re going to be blown off the roof. He looks around for a foothold.

Zura’s an idiot, and he owes him big time after this, at least fifty parfaits. Because there’s going to be an _after,_ damn it, and what the hell was the wig-head even thinking, storming the castle in the middle of the night? Who the hell does he think he is, a one-man army like the oh-so-mighty Shiroyasha? _You’re not that much of an idiot,_ Gintoki wants to yell.

He doesn’t get round to climbing anything. At that exact moment, bursting through the distant shouting and clomping boots, comes a low, guttural roar.

Gintoki freezes, searching the roof desperately for Zura.

Zura, who is falling.

He doesn’t see Oboro melting back into the night or hear the panicked yelling of the Shinsengumi. All he sees is Zura, plummeting from the sky. 

It’s nothing as romantic as Prince Charming rescuing his damsel in distress, but Gintoki just about manages to break the worst of Zura’s fall with his own body. It leaves him winded, splayed on the hard-packed dirt, something wet and sticky and warm sliding down his neck.

Against his skin, there’s a flutter of breath. Relief punches him in the gut so swiftly he struggles for a good few minutes to stand up, Zura on his shoulders. Thank the gods that the helicopter lights missed them. If they could stay blind for the next couple of valuable minutes, it would buy him enough time to get out of the palace and get Zura to one of their old war-time safehouses.    

The Shinsengumi are fanning out now, lanterns raised high as they systematically sweep the grounds to flush out intruders. Gintoki sets up a half-jog to the shelter of one of the outer courtyard’s looming trees. Zura doesn’t stir, breathing still slow and laboured. Fighting down a rising wave of panic, Gintoki counts the number of individual silhouettes he can make out from his hiding place. There are too many.

His best option is back towards the palace’s outer wall, hoping that his main character powers will find him a way over it while toting an unconscious man. The shadows are coming closer, accompanied by a wickedly cold wind that rustles the leaves of the tree above him.

“Now would be a good time for Elizabeth to turn up,” Gintoki mutters. Zura’s breathing doesn’t change.

The stage before him is more light than shadow now. Spotlights prowl back and forth, cutting into Gintoki’s precious cover. If he doesn’t make a break for it, they’ll be discovered. They’ll take Zura. He can’t allow that.      

And then, because the heavens have a cruel sense of humour, the Shinsengumi vice chief strides into view. Stick in the mud, lovably dense Hijikata, who just _has_ to gain a pair of eagle eyes at the worst moment, gaze dragged as if by some magnetic force to the exact tree and the exact patch of shadow sheltering Gintoki.

Staring Hijikata down is probably not the best thing to do, but hell, he wasn’t the one who broke into the damn imperial palace alone.             

_You gonna call for your pals now, Mister Righteous Purveyor of Justice?_

Seconds tick by. Hijikata doesn’t move. The lantern in his hand is swaying, moved by a breeze that has no right to be blowing, its light stuttering and skittering over the ground. Gintoki’s heart thumps against his ribcage, Zura’s dead weight growing heavy.  

Hijikata hasn’t even moved his free hand to his sword. There’s a strange, shadowy look on his face that Gintoki can’t make head or tail of -- but before he can, Hijikata gives him a curt nod. And turns his back. And barks, “all clear!” at his approaching officers.

The dim halo of his lantern grows weaker and weaker, until Gintoki and Zura are alone in the dark.

Just like old times, huh.         

***

The first thing he sees on waking is a familiar silhouette, back turned, about to step foot outside the safehouse.

“Zura!” Gintoki bolts upright in an instant. Sometime during the night, it had started raining, a lively patter still going on the roof. Zura doesn’t look as if he’s dressed for the weather, wearing the clothes Gintoki had taken such pains to divest him of and dry beside the fireplace.

“Zura,” he repeats, softer. “Where do you think you’re going in that state?”

Zura -- Katsura -- hums. “If I recall correctly, you charged into battle on less rest and more freshly-bandaged wounds.”

“Yeah, the foolishness of youth.” Gintoki runs a hand through his hair. “When did I become the grown up around here?”

“Your reminiscing is quaint but unnecessary.” Though his voice is hard, there’s less of the ghost in it. Katsura lowers his head. “Gintoki. Let me do this one last thing, and I’ll come back.”   

“Is that a promise?”

In the rain-spattered quiet and the ever-silver night of Katsura’s smile, there’s a shadow of the past. “You know better than most that I can’t lightly make a promise of such magnitude.”   

Gintoki isn’t sure whether he wants to choke or strangle Katsura. “What is this even about?” he demands. “Killing that crow bastard because of what he did to -- to Sensei? Guess what, you’re not the only one who wants revenge. If you’re going to throw away your life hunting him down, then I’m going to stop you every time. It’s our fight, not just yours.”  

“Oh?” Katsura lifts his chin. “And where was this noble sentiment when you stormed the Shogun’s castle and took on Oboro alone?”

“I can’t plan for everything, okay? If I’d known you were around, I would’ve called.”

Katsura looks outside. “No matter now, it’s too late. Let me go.”

“I -- Dammit, I can’t.” Gintoki tugs at his silver hair. “Don’t you put me on standby.”  

He can’t lose Katsura now that he’s lost Zura; everything about the situation is foolish and self-defeating, a mockery of his worst mistakes, and there Katsura stands, at the juncture of staying and going, acting as if Gintoki has a choice. And he knows what happened the last time he was forced to choose.

“Gintoki,” Katsura looks right through him, his voice a feather short of a whisper. “You can’t save everyone.”

And that was the root of it all, wasn’t it? Gintoki’s greatest failure, one that’s haunted him since the closing of the war. For all his struggling, his training, every one of Sensei’s kindnesses, none of it had been enough. Had it been so wrong to want everyone to live, that the heavens punished him for it? It was the smallest thing to ask, and would have meant the world.

_You couldn’t save anyone, Shiroyasha. Not your teacher, not your comrades, not yourself._

“And you can?” Gintoki yells, or thinks he yells; it comes out so quietly, so small, weary and worn. He’s tired of fighting a war that never ended. If Zura just stopped this mad rampage of a ghost chase, they could go back together. Instead of staring at Zura’s long-haired silhouette, they could face the light, walk forward, leave the fighting and recriminations behind.

“Just come back,” he whispers. “Please.”  

Katsura takes a step out the door. “I’m sorry, Gintoki. I truly am.”  

***

It’s been a month since Katsura attacked the Shogun and they still don’t have a lead on him.

“Unbelievable.” Hijikata takes a furious puff of his cigarette, uncaring if he looks a madman talking to thin air. Everyone else feels the same frustration, they can cut him some slack.

Katsura looked half-dead last he remembered, a few pints blood short of a carcass slung over Sakata’s shoulder. He’d let them go thinking they’d be easy to track down later, considering the extent of Katsura’s injuries. The Yorozuya boss would’ve sooner admitted him to a hospital than tried to treat those wounds himself.

Well, that was what Hijikata had told himself over and over as their investigation kept hitting dead ends. Katsura was wilier a bastard than they’d pegged him as.   Letting him and Sakata go had nothing to do with -- whatever twisted sense of camaraderie he felt towards the two rebels.

Nothing at all. Yeah.

“Hijikata-san, if you think any harder, you’re going to explode.” Okita steps into the station’s smoking room, smirking. “Don’t stop on my account. I’d be quite happy to report to Kondou-san in your place.”

“Eh?” Hijikata stubs the cigarette out in the ashtray. “What does he want?”

“Status update.”

Nothing has changed since last week. Katsura is off their radar; hasn’t made any attempt to breach the palace walls since the night-time raid, and Sakata keeps insisting he hasn’t seen hair or hide of that notorious, palace-invading, royal-endangering pain in the ass, no sir.

On the upside, there haven’t been any more Amanto embassy bombings or Amanto corpses turning up bearing Katsura’s handiwork (just a body in the Edo river, a monk by the look of his clothing, most likely set upon by thieves). Edo at large has returned to business as usual. The Jouishishi are back to committing minor offences, like distributing fundraising pamphlets for terrorist causes, and littering. Without Katsura around, he’d call them docile.

At one point, Hijikata entertained the thought that Katsura must have died of his injuries for him to so completely and thoroughly vanish off the map. But he remembers the man he met at the docks. It’s well within belief that Katsura chose to disappear, rebuild his life somewhere in the countryside. That night, he hadn’t struck Hijikata as someone who relished violence. Once, maybe, he had. But that was a whole war ago.  

And somehow, in the same way Hijikata doesn’t _like_ Katsura, he doesn’t like the idea of him being dead, either.           

***

He finds Katsura at the site of their old school, kneeling in the middle of what had been their classroom. The spring rains have churned the dirt into mud, still moist and soft despite the full heat of the midday sun now beating down on their uncovered heads.    

“Well, what do you know. The world’s not such a large place if I keep running into your stupid face everywhere.”

Katsura does not stand, though Gintoki can practically feel his smile. It’s a beautiful day. They should all be smiling. There’s nothing left for them here anymore, just echoes and impressions of people who aren’t coming back.

“I got your message, by the way. Didn’t expect you to have trained a crow to carry mail, but what do I know of the dark arts?”

The heat sinks its fingers into his hair; soaks into Katsura’s, who places a palm on the mud at his feet and quietly exhales. The edges of his kimono are burnt and bloodied, face bearing a litany of bruises, scratches and half-healed cuts. He looks, in the stark daylight, very human.       

“You satisfied now?” Gintoki asks.

“Hm,” hums Katsura. “For now, yes.”

“Good. Then we’re going back.” Gintoki turns on his heel, then yells over his shoulder, “that’s an order, by the way! I’m dragging you back by your hair if I have to, Zura!”

The birds hidden in the trees that line the path to the former Shouka Sonjuku might be singing, might be telling a story that never ends. Sunlight weaves through the branches and falls on the ground, each of Gintoki’s steps taking him across bands of shadow and light.

“Yes, General,” comes a quiet voice behind him.         

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's done! Took me 6 months, but here we are.


End file.
